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A small selection of meter pike from this week and the week before. This year I was too late and the main spawning season was already over. When I drove down to Karlstad on the 29th of April some of the waters in northern Värmland where still covered with ice. Only 10 days later the ice hade gone and the water temperature was between 8C in the main lake around 10C is shallow bays. During the first week water temperature varied around 4-6C but occasionally up to 8C. Yesterday´s pike from a local water was post spawned as well. The overall catch with 28 pike was a bit lower than expected but the 100+ fish did compensate.

 

Last weekend I visited Robban in Skåne for two days of carp fishing. The ice had just recently disappeared and it was still very early season. The chosen spot could not have been better for the time of the year. Strong winds were pushing warm surface water into a big bay. And it did not take long until my guide caught his first bream. So we knew that at least some fish were feeding. Besides two carp rods I opted for one pike rod with dead bait. In the end more than a 3 kilo pike did not show up. Carp wise the result can be summed up to: Germany 0 – Sweden 2 ! You might also call it modern age beats old school. Like the year before both fish were caught long after sunset. 

Thanks for a superb all-inclusive weekend! I´m afraid that next time it will be your turn again to take the pictures ;)

 

Thanks to local guide Marcel for choosing the right spot and not less to Fredrik for baitfish and a gorgeous lunch! Today I placed my rods totally wrong and did not get a single bite - damn! So I took the pictures instead. Two meter pike made their way through the ice this day. One of them liked the sunny weather so much that it striked again just an hour after its first release. Besides some smaller pike even a nice little zander was caught.

 

Out fishing last Saturday/Sunday and succesfully recovered from the recent defeat in Germany! Conditions were superb. A spell of warmer southwesterly winds of 8.5 degrees, water at 6.5 and on top of that a full moon! More and more I believe in the full moon theory. Not only that there is some scientific evidence. Last autumn I made similar experience, under similar conditions.

The total length of the top 5 was 478cm, so in average 95cm. The two top fish also exceeded the meter mark. In total 18 pike and one zander caught. All kinds of methods delivered: Float trolling with dead roach, Bull-Dawg trolling, and spin fishing.

 

 

 

In October we spent a couple of days in the north-east of Germany. The lake we fished is known to produce huge predators every year. Regarding the big number of anglers (compared to Sweden) it´s no surprise that from time to time a big one must show up. The fishing was very tricky as we did not expect the water being almost crystal clear. A big mistake, as I was told later by a local expert, was to spin-fish with coloured braid.

All in all we caught our fish and I have to admit that I got beaten by Sven in our internal competition. It was one lure that beat all other: the Zalt, colour F04! Spin fishing over some weedy places produced the majority of fish but the bigger ones were taken by trolling. Wind was almost essential for catching and we had many calm hours. To sum it up: A great holiday with lessons to learn and many new experiences! Somehow I totally missed taking pictures.

 

Besides the fishing we enjoyed a very relaxing stay in a wonderful cottage. Quite the opposite of what we normally choose for a fishing trip.

 

 

 

The old champion is the new champion. A nice memory from a fishing trip around twenty years ago. That time Sven won by catching a bream. Hope its´s ok to post the pic?? :)

 

 

The same spot and the same week as last year. No zander this time. Instead three pike and two of them meter fish! That´s meanwhile two weeks ago.

Last week we went for `back to the roots´ fishing from the canoe in the mountains. We also followed some local advice to go for migrating whitefish. The person who told us does not fish himself but his brother does and the story was convincing.The whitefish were supposed to enter a small woodland stream and the strategy was to catch them in darkness with a landing net and headlamp. Of course it did not work and we did not see a single fish but it was fun anyway.

 

Yesterday´s after-work session ended with two top fish of 104 and 112cm taken on jerk and BullDawg. Both fish were pretty slim so that I skipped the weighing. The weather is now stable with sunshine and temperatures around 20C. The watertemperature was at low 11C.

Fishing throughout last week had otherwise been very slow and a long journey to fish for river pike failed.

 

 

5 small pike made it to the net. All taken on jig at a very deep spot with prey fish close by. They were obviously lying close to the bottom with little activity as 3 of them were covered in leeches. The potentially biggest pike just touched the lure and followed it to the boat.

 

5 hours of trolling on Saturday did not bring any fish. Throughout the whole day I saw only one single boat. Perhaps because of no one really felt like launching a boat on a ramp without water? Let`s hope for some more water and I´ll be back!

 

The predicted sudden change to much colder and rainy weather became true on Sunday. When I launched the boat at 8 a.m. the thermometer showed 5.5 degrees. The water in the river was between 8-9 degrees. The lake was a little colder with 7.5

 

Thanks a lot for two successful guidings!

 

During a two night carp session together with Robban I caught 3 beautiful fish. Despite minus temperatures at night and occasional snow throughout daytime the carp were in feeding mode for a short period around sunset.

 

April is pretty much up and down with the weather. 20 cm of snow and much colder temperatures changed the situation dramatically. There won`t be any Easter fishing in Värmland this year. Now it`s time for heading south. Skåne is always good for a surprise...

 

Zero fish from our autumn spot to make a long story short. The next day I tried 30 km further south and what I experienced  was a total pike mayhem.23 pike within 10 hours of fishing! A real monster was missing though the biggest was at 8.7 kilo and 107cm. Two more fish of 99 respectively 98 cm and a couple of fish between 80 and 90 cm. I caught the first one after only 15 minutes of dead bait trolling. Later in the afternoon I switched from trolling dead roach and herring to Bulldawgs. I increased the trolling speed a little and the catching rate remained constant. But in the end it seems that the Bulldawgs deliverd slightly smaller pike than dead baits. Water temp increased throughout the day from 3 to 5 degrees. The warm weather period (3 days of around 14 degrees) is over now. This should stop the pike from spawning and the chance for a big one is still realistic.

 

One week after the sportfishing fair it was time for the first pike session on open water. Close to the boatramp there was some ice left indicating low water temperatures. The very optimistic start with spin fished rubber baits was given up after a while.

The change to float trolling did the trick. The first fish of the 2017 season was a 100+ ! Three more fish got netted that day. Two small and one little better pike. Water temp at 2 degrees. Back at the boatramp I met other pike anglers reporting 11 fish on spin taken cloth to the reeds.

20 cm of ice in Dalarna - time for ice fishing! After 3 hours in snowstorm and -4C the dinner was save.

 

 

 

Last week I enjoyed the last boat fishing for this year with minus degrees throughout the whole day.

 

Now I`ve found some other fishing related things to keep me busy. I received a package from Wales. Meanwhile the third one in recent years. Again fishing literature from Coch-y-Bonddu Books the number one address for new and out-of-print books. It`s all about pike this time. Lots of rather old stuff from the 80ies and 90ies focussing on pike fishing in the UK. Neville Fickling, Mick Brown and others should be an inspiration for future pike fishing attempts.

 

 

 

What a start into the meanwhile traditional autumn fishing week! I already arrived on Sunday morning and tested a quite unknown spot. Expectations were low and the camera was left in the car. After only six hours I finished for the day. The best fishing of the whole season so far! The plan was to save the spot for the upcoming days.

 

But the fishing became slower and slower. At the beginning of the week, morning and evening proved to be very productive. Lures, preferably very big ones, fished down to 5 m delivered quite well. The last day we had to go deep - very deep. All bigger fish seemed to be lying on the bottom. Luckily Robban brought some frozen herring with him that would save the day. One fish cracking the 1m mark took at 10m depth, at a trolling speed of 0.5 knots.

 

Thanx for cooking and dishwashing, Robban ;)

 

 

Only two days after the trip temperatures dropped to subzero. A very early taste of winter with ice and snow destroyed all further autumn fishing plans so far.

 

 

 

 

What a start into the day - ready packed at 5 a.m. and our driver does not show up. In the end we reach our spot, a very huge river, with a sligth delay of 1.5 hours.

It was my very first time spin fishing in such a huge river, with approximately 5 times the water flow of Klarälven! We finished the day with alltogether  8 zander, 2 nice perch and a barbel. The biggest fish of the day got finally lost after 10 minutes of fighting. The catfish of estimately 180 cm finally cut the fluorocarbon leader.

As none of us fished the spot before and despite conditions (water level) being far from good the result was pretty ok. 

 

Even in northern Dalarna autumn had not fully arrived until last week. Temperatures of almost 20 degrees made at least hiking in the mountains a real pleasure. The fishing was not the very best. At least I got the chance to fish 2 spots I have always wanted to fish. An estuary and another place at a fish farm. The pike below took a BullDawg on my musky rod. Whenever a fish strikes your Super Magnum you are expecting a giant. Well, another prove that even medium-sized pike do not fear big lures.

Now I am waiting for a positiv sign from the Netherlands. The plan is to spinfish for zander and pike in a big river.

 

Beautiful late summer with lots of sunshine and water temperatures finally down to 15 degrees. The Sunday afternoon trip ended with 3 zander on jig and two pike on jerkbait. Pretty soon it`s time for a discovery travel to Dalarna. At least on the satellite picture it looks promising.Other people use to fish grayling and trout in the area. Let`s see...

 

       This summer I had 3 pike attacks on my paravans. One of them even left a bite mark!